Skills, Training, and Kinship Networks: Women as Economic Migrants in London’s Livery Companies, c. 1600–1800

Sarah Birt ()
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Sarah Birt: Birkbeck, University of London

Chapter Chapter 5 in Gender and Migration in Historical Perspective, 2022, pp 149-173 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract This chapter explores the role of kinship and friendship networks in encouraging the migration of women to London in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Though women are rarely discussed in the historiography of livery companies, new research regarding the geographic origins of female apprentices shows that they sometimes travelled great distances in order to undertake their training. Moreover, a case study of the Dewell family of sisters from Worcestershire shows that these apprenticeships enabled women to establish businesses in skilled trades such as millinery. These female migrants built and maintained socio-economic networks that were vital to their success and longevity in business, training a new generation of women in prestigious London retailing locations such as the Royal Exchange.

Keywords: Migration; Guilds; Kinship networks; Women’s work; Milliners (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palscp:978-3-030-99554-6_5

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-99554-6_5

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